Grandmothers

Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Attempt to teach your elders.

-Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963, p. 322.

I'm sure my grandmother, possibly both grandmothers, knew how to suck an egg out. I have a vague recollection of my father telling me about this, possibly even demonstrating, although I can't be sure. But when I saw it done by my favorite Sicilian detective, I knew exactly what it was.




I've been searching for the expression, and coming up against wrong information. Sucking an egg is not separating out the yolk or blowing out an egg. It may well not have been commonly written down, which keeps it out of dictionaries.

I grew up with the expression, and it's been running through my mind a lot lately. As young scrubs try to tell me how to circulate, and not in a "you may have missed this thing I can see" way, but in a "you idiot, I know better, do this" way. I try to take the information and ignore the attitude, but it gets exhausting. I don't want to stifle their observations, often the scrub standing aside as we position can see details easily missed by those of us standing too close. Their interpretations and solutions are almost always wrong, because they don't have the training or experience. Ignorance just don't know what it don't know, ya know?

There does need to be a corollary, of course. Say, The young have sharper eyes, let them find the eggs.

Prunella

The greatest beauty contains cracks and imperfections
And grows more lovely through time.
The great expanses are full
of emptiness, and hold all eternity.

The true path appears twisted and snarled.
The brilliant seem goofy.
The most honest language seems simple to the point of silliness.

We dance wildly around a cold, empty center.
We stand stunned in awe beside the rampaging flames.
Inertia rightfully holds both ideas, point and circle.

It is all leather and prunella. Nothing of any moment, all rubbish; through a misunderstanding of the lines by Pope, who was drawing a distinction between the work of a cobbler and that of a parson.
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Pope: Essay on Man.

Prunella is a worsted stuff, formerly used for clergymen's gowns, etc. and for the uppers of ladies' boots, and is probably so called because it was the colour of a prune.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963. p 540.

Hegira

The shadow or the body, which has form?
Reputation or integrity, which lasts?
Triumph or humility, which teaches?


Pour love on concrete, it will not grow.
The hoarder will lose everyone.
Find contentment in yourself, and it cannot be taken away.
Know when you are rich, let the rest go.

This is peace.

Hegira (hej' i ra, he ji' ra) (Arab, hejira, the departure). The epoch of the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina when he was expelled by the magistrates, July 15th, 622. The Mohammedan calendar starts from this event.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963. p. 444.


Taking up this thread again, after more than a year's disuse.


I first heard the word hejira from Shelby Foote, in The Stars in Their Courses, Jeb Stewart's roundabout trip to meet up with R. E. Lee. I also learned about Yael or Jael from Foote.



Artemisia Gentileschi had a lot to work through. Hers is my favorite Judith, as well.

Hydrogen

Imperceptible gases violently explode the universe,
Water wears away granite,
Neutrinos go everywhere.
Do less, be small, everything will happen.

Teach by your life, use few words,
A few will comprehend.

Nephew. (Fr. neveu; Lat, nepos). Both in Latin and in archaic English the word means a grandchild, or descendant. Hence, in the Authorized Version of I Tim, v,4 we read -- "If a widow have children or nephews," but in the Revised "grandchildren." Propertius has it, Me inter seros laudabit Roma nepotes(posterity).
Niece (Lat.neptis) also means a granddaughter or female descendant. See NEPOTISM.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963. p. 638.

Pinch

Pinch off a bit of the One,
And it will have two sides,
Who look lustfully at each other and there is another.
Soon we teem with thoughts and shoots and creation.

The past sucks behind us, the future lures us forward,
Balancing between, in that moment we spin our lives.

We hate feeling alone and grieving and discarded,
But this is where we find our true selves,
In the wholeness that is the tao.

Pit-a-pat. My heart goes pit-a-pat. Throbs, palpitates. An echoic or a mere ricochet word, of which there are a great many in English -- as "fiddle-faddle," "harm-sacrum," "ding-dong," etc.

Anything like the sound of a rat
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat.

BROWNING: Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963. p. 707

Common

The intelligent scholar hears of the tao, and tries to find the perfect translation, learns Chinese, studies hard.
The average student hears of the tao, and toys with it now and then.
The wise fool hears of the tao and laughs. There is no tao without laughter. The spontaneous response.

So the way to light is dark and stormy.
Progress feels like giving up.
The easy way is actually long and difficult.
Morality and religion show themselves as empty and fruitless.
Perfection is a sham.
Manners are inadequate.
Power seems brittle.
The keen knife blunts.

And the finest souls find their way only very late.
The most delicate music is elusive.
The universe is beyond our notions of form.
The tao is not to be trapped in a bottle, named and labeled.
Tao is what is behind and beneath and between all we study and strive for.

Common. Short for common land, which is public property. A common cannot be enclosed and denied to the use of the public without an Act of Parliament. Until the late 18th and early 19th centuries every village in England had its common lands, divided into strips of which each villager had the use of one or more to cultivate for his own use. When the crops had been taken in from these, the whole areas was thrown open for the common grazing of cattle, etc. By various Acts of Parliament these common lands were taken from the villagers and enclosed by larger farmers, etc., only the less fertile portions being left uncultivated and given over to the common grazing purpose of the community. In Scotland an Act of 1695 gave the power to divide the common land among the persons who had the rights thereon.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963, p. 226.

Riches

In the tao, space is mostly clear and empty.
In the tao, earth is mostly solid.
In all is both space and solid, neutrinos go wherever.

In the valley, water flows through the low places, and life abides
In the tao, life forms.

As thinkers, we try to discover the rules, but they form around the tao, not the other way around.

The heavens roil, as does the earth,
If any of it were pure it would strive to mix,
As life needs variety to fill the valley with messy abundance,
All moving among everything else.

All science needs to be sensitive and questioning, to keep up with the simple complexity of tao.

If you are sure, stop and question.
If you desire perfection, begin to appreciate the cracks.
The wise call themselves silly, desolate, unworthy.

Those who are most certain are most to be doubted. The most charming the most to be suspected.
An airtight argument is most likely to be rotten.

Nothing special about the glimmer of diamonds and emeralds,
Look more at the dull stones for your foundation.


This one was a bugger, a very loose interpretation.

Embarras de Richesse (om bar ra' de rē shes') (Fr.). A perplexing amount of wealth, or too great an abundance of anything; more matter than can conveniently be employed. The phrase was used as the title of a play by the Abbḗ de Allainval (1753).

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963. p. 327-8.

Ibis

The truly great, don't think about being great,
They just live well.
The shallow want to be lauded as great,
And can't even be good.

The great souled just get on with the task,
And everything gets done.
The fool tries to look busy,
And leaves a mess for others to clean up.

Real kindness is thorough, without being picky.
The bean counters say they want fairness, but nothing is accomplished.
Those most concerned with rules, really just want to force others to obey.


When the Tao is lost, there is niceness and manners.
When strict etiquette is abandoned, kindness can exist.
When kindness is lost, there is nit-picking.
When justice is lost, the husk of the form pretends to be fair.
This is the terrible illusion, when we mistake the grin for the joy.

Knowing the way the wind will blow isn't magic, it's about sound observations.
Magical thinking leads away from truth.

Real greatness isn't fooled by the surfaces, but responds to the essence.
Attune yourself to the ring of truth, always prefer it to shiny illusions.

Ibis (i' bis). A sacred bird of the ancient Egyptians, specially connected with the god Thoth, who in the guise of an ibis escaped the pursuit of Typhon. Its white plumage symbolized the light of the sun, and its black neck the shadow the the moon, its body a heart, and its legs a triangle. It was said that it drank only the purest of water, and that the bird was so fond of Egypt that it would pine to death if transported elsewhere. The practical reason for the protection of the ibis - for it was a crime to kill it - was that it devoured crocodiles' eggs, serpents and all sorts of noxious reptiles and insects. Cp. ICHNEUMON.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963. p.477.

Kings

Tao expresses without fanfare,
Everything happens.
If the rich and powerful could understand this,
There would be peace, and enough for all.

If they acted with the tao,
Without presumptive goals and plans,
They might actually be of some use.
Abandon greed and expectations,
to find everything in place.

A cat may look at a king. An impertinent remark by an inferior, meaning, "I am as good as you." There was a political pamphlet published with this title in 1652.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963. p. 181.

Bast

The bubble pops,
Because it was inflated.
The sand
Is crumbled mountains.
The crash to the ground,
Comes from climbing very high.

We gather the crop
We planted before.

So everything moves from one state to another,
Success and failure, strong and weak, life and death, all existing together.

This is our condition, we fish in this ocean.
Don't be too proud when you are on top.

Bubastis. Greek name of Bast, or Pasht, the Diana of Egyptian mythology; she was daughter of Isis and sister of Horus, and her sacred animal was the cat. See CAT.

- Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963. p.148

Holland

We all draw close to those who live the Tao,
They shine with peace, exude joy, soothe us.

We run to the excitement of hot food and fast music.
The tao is the quiet work that creates that.
It seems dull, the dirt that grows the peppers, the scales that train the musician,
The invisible physics and electrochemical principles we so try to comprehend,
There is no end, no goal, no ultimate explanation, just tao.

The Dutch have taken Holland. A quiz when anyone tells what is well known as a piece of wonderful news. Similar to Queen Bess (or Queen Anne) is dead.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963, p 312.

Mops

Tao is everywhere, all around, above and below.
Every little one sprouts from it, and it gives out completely.
Tao does the job, then releases it all.

Everything grows from it,
Nothing is forced by it.
It doesn't try to do anything, it is easily missed.

Everything pours back into tao,
But it does not hold them,
It sends all where it needs to be.

It seems like nothing,
Tao is greatness.

All mops and brooms. Intoxicated.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963. p. 620.

Philosophy

Tao is indefinable,
Too small to be caught in a net of words,
Immeasurable enormity.

If we rule ourselves by it,
Everything flows along,
Rains fall, clouds form.
No need for external laws,
We live well though compassionate understanding.

Once we divorce the body from the soul from the mind,
Rewarding one for treating the other well, punishing if it does not,
All crumbles in senseless, effortful words.
Know when to silence the logic,
And simply watch and listen, observe.

Tao pours down, ignoring wordy philosophy, exposing truth.

Philosopher's Stone. The hypothetical substance which, according to the mediaeval alchemists, would convert all baser metals into gold. Its discovery was the prime object of all the alchemists; and to the wide and unremitting search that went on for it we are indebted for the birth of the science of Chemistry, as well as for many inventions. It was in searching for this treasure that Bötticher stumbled on the manufacture of Dresden porcelain; Roger Bacon on the composition of gunpowder; Geber on the properties of acids; Van Helmont on the nature of gas; and Dr. Glauber on the "salts" which bear his name. ... According to one legend, Noah was commanded to hang up the true and genuine philosophers' stone in the ark, to give light to every living creature therein; while another related the Deucalion (q.v.) had it in a bag over his shoulder, but threw it away and lost it*.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963, p. 699


*Threw it away AND lost it? Either/or, I would think.

Weather chill and dull, without real cold or storms, just mucky air. Anything could happen, but it won't.

Walking

When you are the leader, walk in the tao.
Never use force, nor try to conquer.
Because every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Resentments and fury appear when coercion is used.
Deprivation takes over after military victory.
Better to just do what is needed,
Instead of overpowering.

Do what needs doing,
Without expecting glory.
Without boasting
Or excessive pride.

Do what needs doing,
This is the job at hand.
Never using violence.

Force and torture show a weak person in a hopeless position.
This is not the way of balance and life.
Anger and force will crumble what it purports to protect.

Walk. This is a remarkable word. It comes from the O.E. wealcan, to roll; whence we get wealcere, a fuller of cloth. In Percy's Reliques we read:--

She cursed the weaver and the walker,
The cloth that they had wrought.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963 p. 940.

Flittermouse

Think you have it all figured out, and can do better than everyone else?
I don't think anyone can.

The universe has it's own music.
We can barely understand some of the questions to ask it.
Whenever we try to change nature, we make a hash of it.
When we try to contain it, it escapes.

Events pass too slowly, or too quickly for us.
We struggle to breathe, or we fly effortlessly.
One day strong, the next weak and vulnerable.
We see it all with perfect clarity, then the fog rolls in.

When we are wise, we are moderate & tolerant, alert and curious.

Flittermouse. A bat (cp. Ger. Fledermaus). An earlier name was flinder mouse.
Then came... the flyndermows and the wezel and ther cam moo than xx whiche wolde not have comen yf the foxe had loste the feeld. --CAXTON: Reynard the Fox, xli.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963. p. 366.

Gulf

Know how to be forceful,
Without losing careful sensitivity.
Flow with the streaming life,
Let life pour through you.

Unstoppable, finding your way,
Innocent and open.

We see the bright,
Because of the dark.
We reflect the patterns.
Be a clean mirror, live truthfully,
Sounding and echoing the infinite.

Accept praise,
Keep humble balance.
Find your lowest level.
As water does, so does the tao.
Percolating up, evaporating into clouds,
Raining down. Everything returns to unmarked forms.

When a block becomes a letter, it is useful.
The wise use their words well, but say little.
Keep starting over cleanly.

Gulf Stream. The great, warm ocean current which flows out of the Gulf of Mexico (whence its name) and, passing by the eastern coast of the United States, is, near the banks of Newfoundland, deflected across the Altantic to modify the climate of Western Europe as far north as Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. It washes the shores of the British Isles.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963, pg. 423.

Goldfish

When you walk well, you are quiet and leave no mark.
When you speak well, you don't hesitate and stutter.
A good accountant adds the same way every time.
A good door keeps out wind and rain,
Closes easily, stays locked.
Good knots stay secure, they don't need bulk or tape.

Life abandons no one,
If we keep aware, learn well.
We each get a lifetime.

Do well, practice, turn on the lights.

The ones who know,
Teach those who do not.
Those who will not learn?
They are the duty of those who will.
Those who understand should be respected.
The willfully ignorant must be cared for.

Not about fairness, we must all fight against confusion and foolishness.
No matter how good or clever we can be, the weak are not to be blamed, but lifted up.

Goldfish Club. World War II. It is similar to the Caterpillar Club (q.v.) and is for those who had ditched their aeroplanes and taken to the rubber dinghy. A cloth insignia was presented.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963, p. 406.

Weights

The tree underground is heavy, the leaves flutter lightly.
The ocean doesn't move, the wind and sun create currents and waves.

So the wise, when tired and travel worn,
Hold onto their bags, eat well, take care of their feet.
They notice the beauty, but consult the map,
Stay unruffled and calm.

Don't let anyone control anything,
If they can't discipline themselves.
Get caught up in changing fashion,
And lose your footing.
Be restless and unsatisfied,
You will never find your way.

Finger (O.E. finger). the old names for the fingers are: -
O.E. thuma, the thumb.
Towcher (the finger that touches), foreman, or pointer. This was called by the Anglo-Saxons the scite-finger, i.e. the shooting finger, and is now commonly known as the index finger, because it is the one used in pointing.
Long-man or long finger.
Lech-man or ring finger. The former means "medical finger," and the latter is a Roman expression, "digitis annularis." Called by the Anglo-Saxons the gold-finger. This finger between the long and little finger was used by the Romans as a ring-finger, from the belief that a nerve ran through it to the heart. Hence the Greeks and Romans used to call it medical finger, and used it for stirring mixtures, under the notion that nothing noxious could touch it without its giving instant warning to the heart. It is still a general notion in parts of England that it is bad to rub salve or scratch the skin with any but the ring finger.

At last he put on her medical finger a pretty, handsome gold ring, whereinto was enchased a precious toadstone of Beausse, - RABELAIS: Pantagruel, III,xviii.

Little-man or little finger. Called by the Anglo-Saxons the ear-finger, because it can, from its diminutive size, be most easily introduced into the orifice of the ear.
The fingers each had their special significance in alchemy, and Ben Jonson says -
The thumb, in chriomancy, we give to Venus;
The fore-finger to Jove; the midst to Saturn;
The ring to Sol; the least to Mercury.
Alchemist,I,ii.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963, p 359.

Husband

In the mystery before time
Before earth, before the stars
In silence and nothingness
Eternal and infinite
Transcending all description, moving all things,
Perhaps this created us.
Presumptuous to give it a name,
call it tao
as a way to point at it.

Immense, it flows
Far away
then returns.

Tao
Space
Earth
Humanity
All important,
All faces of tao.

We grow out of the earth,
The earth is born of the universe,
The universe arose from tao,
Tao speaks through our understanding.


This one was challenging, and I'm not really satisfied with the words available in English. It clunks, I think.

Husband. The word is from O.E. hus, house, and Old Norse bondi, a freeholder or yeoman, from bua, to dwell; hence, the word is literally, a house-owner in his capacity as head of the household, and so came to be applied to a man joined to a woman in marriage, who was, naturally, the head of his household. When Sir John Paston, writing to his mother in 1475, said -
I purpose to leeffe alle heer, and come home to you and be your hisbonde and balyff,
he was proposing to come and manage her household for her. We use the word in the same sense in such phrases as To husband one's resources.

Similarly a ship's husband is an official responsible for seeing that all the equipment, etc., necessary for going to sea is placed on board a ship before sailing, that all the regulations relating to the voyage are fulfilled, and that the captain is sufficiently furnished with money, etc., for carrying on business when in foreign or other ports.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963, p 475.

Noses

Stretch up, pretend to be tall, you will fall off your shoes.
Take giant steps, you will tire before you get anywhere.
Brag about your serenity and happiness, to show you are blind and lost.
Boast about how good you are, and everyone will look for evidence that you are not.
When it's all talk, you will have nothing made to hold in your hands.
When it's all for show, it will blow away like dust, like smoke.

To follow the way to life, drop all pretense.
Expecting praise and happiness is the surest way to miss both.
So, avoid them.

Brasenose College (braz' noz)* (Oxford). Over the gate is a brass nose, the arms of the college; but the word is a corruption of the brasehuis, a brasserie or brewhouse, the college having been built on the site of an ancient brewery. For over 550 years the original nose was at Stamford, for in the time of Edward III the students, in search of religious liberty, migrated thither, taking the brazen nose with them. They were soon recalled, but the nose remained on their Stamford gateway till 1890 when, the property coming into the market, it was acquired by the College.

-Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963, p 139.

The origin of the nose is not clear. That a college is built on a brewery site is not surprizing. My granny was born in 1890, which is my personal historic touchstone. Living memory.

Yes, I've picked up the tao again. These things take the time they take. Like waiting for the bus.



*That should be a long 'a' and 'o', but I can't figure out how to make the proper mark.